189 Calorie Dessert, Free Online Read

It's a busy summer here for me! Not only do I have three ebooks out this summer (THE BRIDE WORE CHOCOLATE, THE DEVIL SERVED DESIRE and THE ANGEL TASTED TEMPTATION) but also three print books (ONE DAY TO FIND A HUSBAND, HOW THE PLAYBOY GOT SERIOUS and RETURN OF THE LAST MCKENNA (those are Kindle links but the books will be in paperback in stores too; look for Finn's book in stores now). The McKenna brothers were a blast to write, and I'm thrilled to add to their stories with a FREE online read featuring cousin Alec.

So, stop on by once a week (and I'll post the links here and on my Facebook author page as well each week) and see if Alec makes it right with his high school sweetheart in McKenna Homecoming.

This weekend, I tried out a 189-calorie cake for dessert. FABULOUS and really easy! It combines my favorite ingredients--peanut butter and chocolate, and ooooh, Reese's! I found the recipe here, and already pinned it on my Pinterest board, too! :-)

And one more piece of news--if you missed the latest edition of my newsletter, click here to read it online. Lots of news to share--I think I'm going to need a summer break from my summer! :-)

Shirley

Making the Cut: Day 17

Seventeen days into Making the Cut and I'm finally noticing a big difference. Muscles in places I've never had them before (because I am admittedly a wimpy workout person, so I have never worked all that hard, LOL). But after two-plus weeks doing the exercises faithfully, my abs are tighter, my shoulders are rounding nicely, and my calves are getting really defined.



My weight loss stalled for a few days, and all because of a wedding, LOL. We had to drive three hours each way to a family wedding, and I was doing really great on the ride up. Made great choices at the buffet. Then they brought out the cake and OMG, it was CHOCOLATE. Resistance was futile, but I did stop at one huge piece. It was SO yummy, and totally worth it, though.



I figured I could stop with that cheat, then we stopped at Wendy's on the drive home, and though I didn't order anything, the drive-thru people screwed up and threw in an extra kids' meal. Those fries were too tempting to miss, and the chicken nuggets were just begging to be eaten.



Okay, I thought, one day isn't bad. I'll do better tomorrow, right? Well, Sunday was the Mad Ants basketball game, and when my son brought back nachos with cheese sauce...it was all over. I ate more than half of them, then half a pretzel. Then we went to Ruby Tuesday's and I ordered an appetizer I didn't need. All totaled, I had double the calories I needed on both those days. I've stuck to the plan ever since then, but it took about four or five days to get back to losing weight again.



The workouts aren't getting any easier (not that I expected them to, LOL), but I am doing all the circuits twice each time, and the extra 15 minutes of cardio afterwards. I've started cooking a few of my own meals, because there's only so many recipes in that book ;-).

My biggest problem now is jeans. I'm down a full size but CAN NOT find one pair in this city in the size I need. I'm speaking in Columbus, OH, on the 13th (if you're interested, info on my writing presentation on the "Rule of Six" is on their website) and am hoping I can find some in the mall there. If not, I'll have to order them (a huge pain, because jeans are so hard to get right and I end up trying on a dozen pairs at a time). But y'all know me--shopping isn't exactly a hardship, LOL.

The key for me has been total diligence about tracking my calories and exercise. I use Fat Secret, which is a free program for my Blackberry (get it through Blackberry App World, which should be installed on your BB, if you have one. If not, they make an app for other kinds of phones too; check the website). I love that I can look at the past days and see calorie expenditure versus calorie intake. That helps me fine-tune the number of calories I need to keep losing weight (I found I need about 100 calories less than Jillian recommends or my weight just stays the same). It has a great exercise calculator, and the food diary is filled with store, restaurant and brand name products so that most everything I eat is easy enough to find in there.



I do miss my cooking sprees, and I bet readers do, too, LOL. But in doing this, I've found a lot of creative ways to eat healthier and lower calorie, so I'm sure that'll affect future recipes. Unless someone puts a piece of cake in front of me ;-)

Shirley

Making the Cut: Day 8

Now that we have our plane tickets bought for Spring Break, I am reminded on a daily basis that bathing suit season isn't that far away (my daughter has a countdown going until we are on the beach...gee, think she's looking forward to the vacation?).


Anyway, even though I have lost almost all the weight I wanted to, and gotten almost to the size I wanted to be, I wasn't quite there. And though I didn't gain anything over Christmas, the three weeks off from working out and cookie-based meals (cookies are FAB for breakfast, if you ask me!) weren't exactly a help to my physique.

I had turned on the On Demand Exercise TV the other day and tried out one of Jillian Michaels' workouts. She's the trainer on The Biggest Loser--and when you watch those people drop 15 pounds in one week you wonder what on earth she's doing right. So I tried the workout, which she does with a half dozen or so contestants from The Biggest Loser. These folks are in the middle of their weight loss journey, so they're still battling a bit of a bulge and they were doing all that Jillian asked of them--which take it from, was NOT easy. But it wasn't killer, if that makes sense. It was a tough workout, that made me feel like "wow" afterwards. I thought if she could do that in 20 minutes, what about a longer workout?

So I went to the bookstore and picked up Making the Cut, which is designed for people who have less than 20 pounds to lose and who want to just finish that toning/sculpting process. It's a diet and exercise plan, based on how you metabolize food.

I looked at it, thought it was doable, and set right to work the next day. The diet is definitely livable--most days I have trouble getting in all the calories I'm supposed to have. I think that's because there's lots of fiber in the diet, so that fills me up, and I'm not hungry enough to eat that much. But when I do as she advises and stick to my BMR number of calories every day, I do lose weight. The recipes are actually quite good, especially considering it's "diet" food. There's a salmon with prosciutto that I loved, and a chicken and black bean burrito that my whole family loved. The Apricot Glazed chicken was okay, not great, and the stuffed eggplant was fabulous. And healthy :-)

And I've done the workouts faithfully. She wants you to do the circuits twice, which I try to do, though I'm not successful every time. It's a constant, fast-paced interval training workout, with dumbbells and a little gym equipment, and one-minute bursts of either jump rope, treadmill or running sprints in between each circuit. I'm sweaty, tired and ready to fall down at the end of it, LOL.

Okay, so I'm eight days in (out of 30 total in the book) and what have been the results?

I've lost 6 pounds. I've lost an inch off my waist, an inch off my hips, an inch off my thighs. (My daughter always asks me where all that weight goes...I tell her it goes to her size 0 hips, LOL).

I'm committed to this 30 days, though I do have a wedding to go to this weekend, so that's going to make things hard, and a basketball game, where the siren call of a beer and pretzel are going to be hard to resist. If I just keep trying on that swimsuit, though, I think I can stick to it ;-)

Shirley

Finding the Fun in Fitness

I'm blogging over at Love is an Exploding Cigar today about how fitness can be fun (okay, sort of ;-) and the before and after results of my four and a half months on the elliptical machine!

Shirley

Working Out and Working

Last year, I hit the big 40 (though if you ask me, I'll deny it, LOL, and my darling teen daughter is backing my story of being in my mid-thirties still ;-) and at some point this year it hit me that I either get in shape now or I'm going to look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame crossed with Dumbo by the time I'm 50.





So, DH and I cashed in some reward points and used them toward a shiny new Nordic Track Elliptical machine. Those who are faithful readers of my blog know that I once sold my treadmill so I could buy a recliner. LOL. And you wonder why I have an issue with needing to work out??



(I've also been on a ridiculously tight book deadline, and trying to eat really lean, which is why the recipes have been pretty sparse around here, folks. Sorry. No baked fettuccini for me for a while ;-).


I was excited about the elliptical machine but not really sure I'd commit to it. I had, however, been doing pilates ab exercises for several weeks, though, and noticed a difference already in my waist, and was anxious to see something happen with the other seven million body parts, so when the Nordic Track was installed, I went down to the basement, with good intentions.





I think I lasted eight minutes the first time ;-)





Now I'm up to at least 30 minutes, 5 or 6 times a week, followed by a 20-minute free weight/floor work routine that varies from day to day. And a few days a week, I walk a 3.3 mile loop with my friend Marci. It's taken since the end of April (I came back from the Writer's Police Academy, saw a photo of myself online and had MAJOR motivation after that), but I'm down three sizes, and have shaved six inches off my waist. I've lost 20 pounds, which to me wasn't huge, compared to the major difference in body shape.





Geesh, if I'd know exercise could do all this, I would have done it years ago, LOL.





Seriously, I DESPISE exercise. In all forms. I b*tch and moan my way through my workout every single time (I truly think lunges were created by a masochist), and when I'm done, wish the scale and mirror would show Cindy Crawford's body so I never, ever have to go near that equipment again ;-).





But it's working, and while I may never reach my exact goals, I'm pretty darn happy with where I am right now. Every day I get to go "shopping" in my closet for things that have been waiting years to see the light of day again. And that alone is incentive enough to get back down there and put in another 30 minutes of quality time with my Nordic Track.





Shirley

100 Calorie Snacks...A Good Idea?

My local paper ran an article about 100 calorie snacks you can make yourself (okay, I like to cook, but even I'm not sure I'd go to that much work for 100 calories. Those people at Nabisco have handily done it for me already).

Then there's the serving issue. The recipes make servings for more than one.

Well, when you have a 100-calorie snack, WHO STOPS AT ONE SERVING? It's so easy to say, just another couple. It'll only be...10 calories. Then a couple more. Another 10. Before you know it, you've eaten the entire dish and racked up a few hundred calories instead.

I'll all for low-calorie snacks, BTW. Especially considering the insane amount of time I've spent on my elliptical machine in recent months. But I need them to come with a lock and key. A real limiter--no more after 100. Like a in-house vending machine.

Now THERE'S an idea I could get behind. A home vending machine for dieters. You plug in the number of calories you want to eat for the day, and the machine only spits out enough food for that amount of calories. No more. No less. It's like having armed guards standing in front of your kitchen cabinets ;-)

Now, if McDonald's could just make a 100-calorie double cheeseburger meal... ;-)

Shirley